WWE: The Big Show: A Giant's World

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All Rise...

Judge Ike Oden is the world's laziest athlete.

The Charge

It's a big, big show tonight.

The Case

There are only so many jobs for a giant. Paul Wight stumbled into that of pro
wrestling, and the sport is all the better for it. The Big Show: A Giant's
World documents the wrestler's life and career, tackling every subject from
his bout with acromegaly (the cause of his gigantic growth) to his rise through
the ranks of WCW, WWF, WWE and ECW.

A Giant's World lives up to the legacy of the WWE's documentary
series. It clocks in at a scant hour in length, but covers a lot of ground in
the process, exploring the multiple dimensions of Paul "Big Show"
Wight. The wrestler's childhood and family life are especially interesting given
that Wight and his family were ignorant to his affliction (Wight thought of it
more as a blessing) until his freshmen year of college. Following the
correctional surgery that, while saving his life, took away much of his athletic
stamina.

The documentary gets really interesting when it explains how Wight was
plucked from obscurity as a used car salesman by Hulk Hogan himself and signed
to a contract with the WCW. Interspersed with the story of his wrestling career
are testimonials from Wight's friends, family, and fellow wrestlers (including
Triple H and John Cena).

While the documentary always works, it does gloss over a few details about
the Big Show's career, which may in turn irk fans. His WCW stuff is never really
explored to its fullest depths, the politics of the business are barely touched
upon, and many of the wrestlers Wight claimed to be his greatest
mentors—such as The Undertaker—aren't on hand to offer their
opinions. A lot of cross-promoting Wight's WWE film vehicle Knucklehead
doesn't help matters much. These flaws are pretty minor given the quality of the
feature's content, but hold it back from being anything more than your typical,
slightly shallow WWE documentary. A copious amount of deleted material
accompanying the film A Giant's World addresses some of these criticisms,
but not as many as I'd like.

Where the package really shines is in the bonus discs, which features six
hours of the Big Show's most important matches.

The matches start in the WCW era. While I have some fond memories of the
show, this footage shows off Wight at his weakest as a wrestler—lumbering,
chopping, and choke slamming slow and sloppy. In fact, it reminds me of how
weak-sauce a promotion WCW was. None of it ever gets into Wight's involvement
with the nWo, which is disappointing, and the matches are almost completely out
of context, weakening whatever drama could potentially elevate the matches. The
most interesting match of all these is the first, against "Hollywood"
Hulk Hogan. It begins with a monster truck sumo match, has the giant fall off a
roof into a river only to re-emerge and take Hogan's title belt. It is utterly
ridiculous, even for pro-wrestling, and almost redeems the WCW stuff in its
retro-active suckiness.

The rest of the matches on the set have their ups and downs, but mostly ups.
The Big Show entered the WWF during the Attitude era, meaning we're treated to
matches featuring the likes of Stone Cold, Undertaker, Mankind, The Rock, Mr.
McMahon, etc. This roster of superstars all push Show's abilities and we see him
grow as a performer with almost every match. Sure, there are a couple of dead
weight choices, but on the whole, these offer some damn good wrestling. A far
cry from the WCW stuff, anyway.

From there, we move into the ECW revival era, which cemented Show as a
formidable heel and pushed his performance even further. Some of his matches
here are a little awkward. Given his size and lack of speed, The Big Show has a
tough time keeping up with hardcore performers like Rob Van Damme. The matches
are a little more inconsistent than the Attitude Era material, but Show varies
his game enough to make each match a bit more unpredictable.

The set rounds out with his post-ECW return to the WWE. Here, Show
experiments less with his wrestling than with his persona, going from face to
heel to clown to heel back to face, and finally landing somewhere in between all
of these personalities. We have his parody of Hulk Hogan ("The
Showster"), his classic WrestleMania battle with boxer Floyd Mayweather
(who breaks his nose in a preceding altercation), and matches against Rey
Mysterio, Jr., D-Generation, Batista, and many other prominent performers of the
modern age. These matches range from decent to great, with the exception of a
few stilted tag team matches I could do without.

These closing matches bring a fully realized view of Big Show, a wrestler
that's as a likeable as he is powerful. Also, the guy broke a ring. What's not
to like about a guy so big he can break a ring? This is a great DVD that does
him justice.